IfS ERM.

the indulgent Satan fhews him a Stone. a Son afk Bread of any of you that is a Father, will be give him a Stone? Luke xi. 11. The very Propofal, (if Chrift had not known him before) was enough to have difcovered whence he came. And yet the Temptation, confidering the prefent Circumstances of our Lord,and the Barrenness of the Place, was well laid and artfully applied. It feems to be fetched from that miraculous Provifion, which GOD always had made for his former Servants, whenever any of them had been driven to the fame Diftrefs; and confequently it appears to be urged with a Design to raise in Jefus a Diffidence and Distrust of God's Care over him; to put him upon renouncing any further Dependance upon his Provision; and to make Use of that Power which he had already received, to provide for himself. The Words of the Devil (if taken in this View) may be paraphrafed thus: "Son of GOD, "if fo thou art; (and fure a Voice which "pronounced thee fo from Heaven may be "believed) what is it that induces thee in "this defolate Place, to abide fo patiently "in this Hunger and Diftrefs, and to feem "as helpless as if thou wert but meer Man? "Thou knoweft that here thou canst expect Dd 3

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SERM...

no Food by any ordinary Supply: and what XIII, "avails thy extraordinary Power, if thou

"doeft not, or mayeft not, make Use of it

now, at fuch a Time, for thy own Re"lief? Nor think a Miracle ill beftowed, "because laid out upon thy bodily Provifi66 on: For who was ever fuffered to wan"der here, without the Expence of Mira"cles to fuftain them? Were not the Heavens opened daily for forty Years together to rain Bread upon the Ifraelites; and were not the Rocks obliged to yield forth "Water to find them with Drink? When only Elijah, a fingle Prophet, had under

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gone the Abftinence of one Day only in "this defolate Place, an Angel dispatched "from Heaven to comfort him, provided "him thou knoweft a Cake ready baken, and

a Crufe ready filled, and carefully ftood by "him till he had twice eat and drank, and

was fufficiently refreshed, 1 Kings xix. 4, "&c. Nay even the rejected Hagar and her "Son, though Outcafts from the House and

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Family of the Faithful, and that by GoD's

efpecial Command; yet were not so far forgotten by Providence, but that when "they were in the Wilderness, deftitute and "forlorn, the Angel of GoD purposely de"fcends

"fcends to nourish and sustain them.

How SER M.
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"is it then that thon, who art far from be

ing an Outcaft, who art not only of the Family and Houfhold of Faith, but also art the very Object of their Faith, the Cen<c ter of all their Confidence and Truft ; "that thou, who art not only a Prophet, "but the Sum and Completion of all the

Prophets before thee; that art not only of "Ifrael, the chofen and favourite People of GOD, but haft lately been proclaimed beyond them all, his beloved Son in whom he " is pleafed; How comes it that thou only, " with all these Characters, art neglected " and left alone in this defolate Place, and "in fuch Extremity of Hunger and Want? "Is not this a Sign that thy Father thinks "thee fufficiently able to provide for thy"felf? And therefore if thou art truly the "Son of GoD, and art endued with a Pow

er, equal to what that Title implies; it concerns thee to exert and make Ufe of "it now, when thou feeft thou must look "for no farther Help from him.”

In fome fuch Terms as thefe, or the like, we may suppose the Devil to have couched and disguised the Bait he laid for our Blefied Lord, the Subject of which only the Evan

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SERM. gelifts express, and that in general Terms. But by thus covering and gilding his Defign, the crafty Devil might imagine that he should bring our Saviour either into a Doubt of the Divine Power invested in him; or else to prefume upon it, to provide for himself, from a Diftruft of his Father's Providence over him, and not to wait till he in his good and proper Time should send him a Supply. And it is certain that to have turned a Stone into Bread, would not have been more faulty in itself, than the multiplying of Loaves already provided, or the turning of Water into Wine. But in the present Cafe, it was not fit for Jefus himself, who knew on whom he depended, to foreftall or haften the Provifions defigned him: Nor were Miracles to be lavished away or abufed, for the Devil's Conviction, or at his Command. Jefus therefore

does not at all concern himself to convince Satan that he was the Son of GOD: But fhews that he had no Reafon to mistrust GOD's Care of him, whether he was truly his Son or not,

To this end he wifely divests the Devil of his Arms, and wrefts from him the very Ground of his Temptation. Satan, we fee, had taken it for granted, that Man could not

be

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be sustained unless he had Bread to fupport SER M. him: But our Saviour fhews him from an infallible Evidence, from the Word of God, that he had very grofly mislaid his Suggestion. For he answered and faid, It is written, that Man fhall not live by Bread alone, but by every Word that proceedeth out of the Mouth of GOD. The Place where this is written is in the 8th of Deuteronomy, ver. 3. where Mofes, in exhorting the Children of Ifrael to Obedience, in regard of God's Providence and Dealing with them, reminds them of his fuftaining them miraculously in the Wilderness, where no ordinary Sustenance could be procured for them. He fuffered thee (faith he) to hunger, and fed thee with Manna (which thou kneweft not, neither did thy Fathers know) that he might make thee know, that Man does not live by Bread only, but by every Word that proceedeth out of the Mouth of the Lord, doth Man live, i. e. by every Thing (for fo the Word in Scripture often fignifies) which God by his Word or Command appoints or fubftitutes to nourish and fuftain us. For GoD, if he please, can either fuftain us without Bread at all, as he did Mofes and Elias before, and Jefus now, for forty Days; or else he can feed us with

Bread